The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the Kerala gold scam, suspects the involvement of Pakistani-terrorist Dawood Ibrahim’s D-company in the case, reports Times Now.
According to the reports, the NIA suspects that a few accused in the Kerala gold smuggling case has links with the Dawood Ibrahim’s network. The NIA revealed the details of D-Company’s links in the case before a court in Ernakulam during the hearing of a bail plea of the seven accused in the case.
The NIA said that two accused Ramees KT and Sharafudheen had travelled to Tanzania and visited shops in the African country where guns are sold. In Tanzania, Ramees attempted to procure a licence for the diamond business. According to NIA, Ramees later smuggled gold to the UAE and from the UAE he bought gold back to Kerala.
“Tanzania and Dubai are the main places where the Dawood gang is active. In fact, D-company’s affairs in Tanzania are handled by an Indian named Firoz Oasis. We suspect Ramees’s links with D-company. Ramees was caught by the Customs in November 2019 for smuggling 13.22 mm bore rifles. This happened when the gold smuggling was taking place,” NIA counsel Arjun Ambalapatta submitted before the court.
Another accused is a PFI member, suspect in the hand-chopping case
The NIA counsel has also submitted that the another accused in the gold smuggling case – Mohammed Ali is a member of Popular Front of India and was charge-sheeted by the police in the Kerala hand-chopping case. However, he was later acquitted.
In its report, the NIA has alleged that Ali had formatted all the data on July 19th when his role had surfaced in the public domain. However, from the limited data that the NIA has retrieved from his mobile, it was found out that there were materials pertaining to the death of the Indian origin ISIS recruits, posters supporting the members of the banned organisation SIMI.
The NIA had also obtained images of paper slips depicting the details of huge transactions amounting in several lakhs. The NIA has now the evidence before the court stating that Mohammad Ali’s suspicious cash transactions need to be ascertained further through custodial interrogation and further forensic analysis.
Kerala gold scam: Accused Swapna Suresh says CM Vijayan had multiple ‘private meetings’ with UAE consul
Earlier on Wednesday, in a sensational disclosure, the prime accused in the Kerala gold smuggling case – Swapna Suresh had revealed to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had held multiple meetings with the Consul General of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2017.
The prime accused Swapna Suresh, in her statement to ED, had disclosed that it was Vijayan who had also “unofficially” recommended the name of his then principal secretary M Shivasankar as the state government’s official point of contact with the UAE’s consulate.
Swapna Suresh has also admitted before the probing agency that the private meetings between Vijayan and the UAE diplomats were held at CM Vijayan’s official residence in Thiruvananthapuram. Suresh was arrested by the NIA in July after she was found misusing fraudulently obtained diplomatic immunity papers to smuggle gold from UAE.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is investigating the case, had also informed the NIA Special Court in Kochi that Swapna Suresh had “good influence” in Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office.
In a relief to Republic TV journalist Pradeep Bhandari, anticipatory bail has been granted to the journalist after he was summoned under non-bailable sections by the Mumbai Police.
Pradip Bhandari took to Twitter to reveal that though his anticipatory bail was opposed for two hours in court, finally, it was granted after the legal team of Arnab Goswami put up a commendable fight.
My anticipatory bail plea has been accepted by the Honorable Court. It was opposed for close to 2 hours, but fantastic legal team of #ArnabGoswami and @republic got us a big victory. My resolve to fight for truth, & justice has emboldened further. ThankU all. #JusticeForSSR
Pradeep Bhandari took to Twitter to say, “My anticipatory bail plea has been accepted by the Honorable Court. It was opposed for close to 2 hours, but fantastic legal team of #ArnabGoswami and @republic got us a big victory. My resolve to fight for truth, & justice has emboldened further. ThankU all. #JusticeForSSR“.
A day after Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh was left red-faced after he attempted to falsely implicate Republic TV and its editor-in-chief- Arnab Goswami in the “TRP scam” case, Mumbai police had upped its ante against the independent media network. In yet another brazen attempt to browbeat the news channel, the Mumbai police had summoned its consulting editor and journalist Pradeep Bhandari for questioning.
Pertinently, Pradeep Bhandari has been leading the reportage in demand for justice in Sushant Singh Rajput death case. Subsequently, Arnab Goswami had accused Param Bir Singh of targeting his channel for relentlessly pursuing the actor’s death case, the Palghar lynching case etc. He had said that the Mumbai PC is scared about facts coming out in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case
A complaint against Bhandari was registered at the Khar police station under Articles 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of IPC and 37(1), 135 of the Bombay Police Act, and he has been asked to appear for the investigation of the said crime.
While hearing a plea challenging Mumbai Police summons to the Republic TV officials for reporting on the TRP scam, the Supreme Court on 15th October asked Republic TV to go to Bombay High Court first before approaching the apex court. Justice Chandrachud pointed out that the office of Republic TV is in Worli, which is closer to Flora Fountain, where the High Court building is located.
A bench comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee heard the petition jointly filed by ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd and Arnab Goswami, and rejected the petition. Arnab Goswami and his media house had approached the Supreme Court against the summons issued by Mumbai Police to the officials of the channels, demanding to know the source of the complaint by Hansa Research which was accessed and broadcast by the channel. This complaint had exposed the lies of Mumbai Police Commissioner, as it shows that India Today was accused of manipulating TRP data, not Republic TV as alleged by the Commissioner.
After Republic TV accessed both the FIR in the TRP scam and the complaint by Hansa Research based on which the FIR was filed by Mumbai police, and exposed the lies of Commissioner Param Bir Singh, Mumbai Police have issued summons to several officials to Republic TV to interrogate them. The officials and journalists were questions for hours, asking them the source of the documents.
Justice Chandrachud showed concern on how Police Commissioners tend to give TV interviews about ongoing investigations. He said, “We are concerned of this observation that as of late, Commissioners have the tendency of giving interviews.” Since the case came to light, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh has been actively talking to the media about the case. Generally, investigation agencies restrain themselves from talking about ongoing investigations in the media.
Trust the lower courts
The apex court said that people should show trust in the lower courts before approaching the Supreme Court. Justice Chandrachud said, “We must have faith in our HCs. Without the intervention of the HC, it sends a bad message to the HC. They’ve been functioning throughout the pandemic.” Indu Malhotra advised the media network to approach the Bombay High Court under Article 226 or Section 482.
Senior counsel Harish Salve appearing for the Republic TV agreed to withdraw the plea, and approach High Court in the matter. The apex court granted permission.
Reply submitted by Mumbai Police
Before the proceedings could commence, the Mumbai Police had submitted a short advance reply in the court. They said that Article 19(1)(a) could not be used as a shield to prevent any investigation into the alleged fudging of TRPs. Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India guarantees to all its citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression.
Mumbai Police, in its reply, also alleged that Republic TV is holding debates and discussing the case at length. They said that the channel is contacting the witnesses summoned by the Mumbai Police and allegedly trying to intimidate them.
TRP Scam
A few days back, Mumbai Police Commissioner announced that they had unearthed a TRP scam done by various news channels. Based on the report by Hansa Group that manages BARC devices to determine viewership of the TV channels, Mumbai Police filed a case against three news channels. Though the Hansa Report did not mention Republic TV and had named India Today in the complaint, Mumbai Police summoned Republic TV and named them as one of the accused.
A Delhi traffic police constable was dragged on the bonnet of a car for nearly 400 metres after he tried to stop the vehicle by jumping on top of the car. The incident took place in Delhi Cantonment area in south-west Delhi on Monday evening.
In the video that has gone viral on the internet now, a police constable was seen dragged by a driver on the bonnet of his car after the police officer tried to stop him The driver can be seen zigzagging across the lanes to escape from the police. As the culprit drove his car rashly, the police constable who was atop the bonnet of the car dropped onto the road.
#CaughtOnCam-A Delhi traffic police constable was dragged on the bonnet of a car after he attempted to stop the vehicle for rash driving, in Delhi Cantonment area on Monday.
The accused managed to escape but was later caught by the locals.
According to the reports, the errant driver identified as Shubham, a resident of Uttar Nagar had tried to escape from the police constable Mahipal Singh on Monday. The police constable had asked the driver to stop the car after seeing a fancy number plate near a traffic signal.
The driver initially slowed down, but then suddenly increased the speed of the car. The police constable Singh jumped on the bonnet of the car and kept asking the driver to stop the car. However, the accused kept driving the car in an attempt to flee from the spot.
Driver attempted to flee, caught by public
The entire incident was captured in CCTV cameras. The errant driver attempted to flee from the spot but was caught by the public and other traffic police personnel who chased him for nearly a kilometre.
The constable, Mahipal Singh Yadav has suffered minor injuries after falling off the bonnet, the police said on Wednesday.
“The driver slowed down and then suddenly accelerated away. I fell on the car bonnet in a bid to escape being run over and grabbed on to the windshield wiper. Instead of stopping the vehicle, despite me repeatedly asking him to, he continued to drive rashly and dragged me for 300-400 metres. He sped away after I fell off the bonnet. However, the public and the other traffic police constables chased and caught him,” Singh said.
A complaint has been registered against the errant driver for assaulting a public servant on duty based on Singh’s complaint.
“The errant driver was arrested and booked for assault/criminal force to deter a public servant from performing duty and rash driving. A case under sections 186,353, 279, and 337 of the Indian Penal Code was registered against him at the Delhi Cantt police station,” said deputy commissioner of police Devender Arya.
In a big setback to Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday quashed a police chargesheet against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and Union Minister Babul Supriyo for allegedly making “objectionable” comments against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra during a TV debate in 2017.
“From the above discussion, I have already come to the conclusion that the allegations in the first information report and other materials, accompanying the FIR do not disclose any cognizable offence under Section 509 of the IPC. Therefore, the chargesheet being No 27 dated March 8, 2017, filed under Section 509 of the IPC is liable to be quashed,” the Calcutta High Court read.
On Thursday, Babul Supriyo tweeted the quashing order of the Calcutta High Court and claimed a victory against Moitra after fighting the case for nearly three years.
In 2017, TMC MP Mahua Moitra had filed a case against the BJP MP Supriyo accusing him outraging her modesty during a TV debate. In the debate show on a national TV, Babul Supriyo had taken a dig at Mahua Moitra, who was then an MLA, by asking, “Mahua, Are you on Mohua? (a local hooch in Bengal)”
The controversial TMC leader Mahua Moitra had found it very insulting and had lodged a complaint at the Alipore Police Station. The West Bengal police had registered the case and filed a chargesheet. A local court had directed the cops to initiate action against Babul Supriyo under Section 509.
Amidst the ongoing controversy over media networks allegedly manipulating their TRP ratings, especially by the likes of India Today, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which measures TV audience ratings, has decided to halt estimating audience rating the news channels, reports Exchange for Media.
In a statement released by BARC, the audience measuring agency has said that their technical committee will now review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres to improve their statistical robustness.
The BARC said that it would cover all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News channels ratings in the new exercise with immediate effect.
Hence, BARC will now stop publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels as they review their rating system. The exercise, which is expected to take around 8-12 weeks, will include validation and testing under the supervision of BARCs technical committee.
Meanwhile, BARC will continue to release weekly genre level audience estimates by state and language, the rating agency said.
“Given the most recent developments, the BARC Board was of the opinion that a pause was necessitated to enable the industry and BARC to work closely to review its already stringent protocols and further augment them to enable the industry to focus on collaborating for growth and well-natured competitiveness,” Punit Goenka, Chairman of BARC India Board said.
Sunil Lulla, the CEO of BARC India, said that BARC takes their role in truthfully and faithfully reporting ‘What India Watches’ with the greatest sense of responsibility and work with integrity to ensure that the audience estimates ratings remain true to their purpose.
The review exercise by audience rating agency BARC comes amidst the ongoing controversy over the ‘fake TRP scam’ involving various news channels and media network, and the subsequent attempt by Mumbai police to shield the accused news channels and instead target Republic TV.
The full press release from BARC announcing the decision is given below:
BARC TO PAUSE AUDIENCE ESTIMATES (RATINGS) OF NEWS CHANNELS
Genre Level Ratings, by State and Language to Continue
Mumbai, October 15, 2020. In the light of the recent developments, BARC Board has proposed that it’s Technical Committee (Tech Comm) review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres, to improve their statistical robustness and to significantly hamper the potential attempts of infiltrating the panel homes. This exercise would cover all Hindi, Regional, English News and Business News channels with immediate effect.
Therefore, starting with the ‘News Genre’, BARC will cease publishing the weekly individual ratings for all news channels during the exercise. This exercise is expected to take around 8-12 weeks including validation and testing under the supervision of BARCs Tech Comm. BARC will continue to release weekly audience estimates for the genre of news by state and language.
Explaining the need for this move, Punit Goenka, Chairman of BARC India Board said, “Given the most recent developments, the BARC Board was of the opinion that a pause was necessitated to enable the industry and BARC to work closely to review its already stringent protocols and further augment them to enable the industry to focus on collaborating for growth and well-natured competitiveness”.
Says Sunil Lulla, CEO, BARC India, “We at BARC take our role in truthfully and faithfully reporting ‘What India Watches’ with the greatest sense of responsibility and work with integrity to ensure that our audience estimates (ratings) remain true to their purpose”. He added, “besides augmenting current protocols and benchmarking them with global standards, BARC is actively exploring several options to discourage unlawful inducement of its panel home viewers and further strengthening its Code of Conduct to Address Viewership Malpractice”.
‘Fake TRP’ scam
Last week, Mumbai CP Param Bir Singh, in an explosive statement had accused Republic TV of ‘TRP manipulation’. In a witch hunt attack against Republic TV and Arnab Goswami, the Mumbai Commissioner had claimed, that the channel had illegally paid some households to keep some channels on even if they were not at home to boost their TRP.
The Mumbai Police had filed a complaint against three channels namely Fakt Marathi, Box Cinema, and Republic-TV for manipulating television rating points (TRPs).
However, by the end of the day, it was revealed that in the original FIR, Republic TV did not find a mention anywhere. In fact, it was India Today that had been named in the original FIR. Later, the Joint Commissioner had to admit even India Today was named in the ‘Fake TRP’ FIR.
Following this development, Republic TV also accessed the complaint filed by Hansa Research, the agency that manages the BARC bar-o-meter devices installed at panel houses, which had shown that they had mentioned India Today, not Republic. After that, Mumbai Police is continuously hounding and harrasing the channel to know from where they accessed the report, while they have effectively burried the case against India Today.
Days after four cine-associations and 34 movie production houses filed a petition against Republic TV and Times Now over the coverage of Bollywood-drug nexus, it has been revealed that the original petition included more TV news channels which were dropped in the final petition, without informing some of the petitioners. OpIndia has accesses email exchanges between Solicis Lex, the law firm representing CINTAA (Cine & TV Artists Association), and the Producers Guild, which discuss about possibility of adding more channels in the petition so that it does not look like targeted against two channels.
On 15th October, an office bearer of Producers Guild of India wrote to Solicis Lex, saying that as there are total 38 petitioners in the petition, they have decided that only one law firm will represent them all due to logistical issues. The official writes that there are more media houses ‘who have also indulged in defamation, vilification and slander against the industry’, and they are ready to have a discussion to add more defendants to the case.
Replying to the email, Ameet Mehta, managing partner of Solicis Lex, wrote on behalf of CINTAA that the ambit of the petition should also include more channels, “which inadvertently may have been missed out in petition by the Producers Guild”. The law firm suggested the addition of the following channels:
Aaj Tak
NDTV
CNN-IBN
Editors Guild of India
Zee News
India TV
India Today
ABP News
It may be noted that Editors Guild of India is not a new channel, but the same was included in the list by the law firm. Giving the justification for adding these additional respondents to the case, the email stated, “Otherwise the petition is going to look like a targeted audience against two new Channels”.
Interestingly, the mail by the law firm official representing CINTAA states that as per original plan, they were to include all major news channels in the plea, and they were surprised to see the final petition. “Let me reiterate and remind that it was a clear understanding that we will be making all major news Channels, party to this. However, we were little surprised to see the final petition only limiting to two news channels”, the mail stated. This means, CINTAA was kept in dark about limiting the petition only to Republic TV and Times Now.
“We have to either make it really look fair or just then we delete all and keep two,” Ameet Mehta added. He also suggested that keeping respondents like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube in the petition look as ornamental parties which have no meaning.
“Lets be fair and move ahead. We are with PG and do not wish to be let out of this. However an amendment is urgently needed”, the mail stated. The law firm also as the Produces Guild that in case they do not want to add the mentioned channels as parties to the case, CINTAA should know the reason of the same as petitioners.
Twice every year, in April and in October, the International Monetary Fund releases its World Economic Outlook (WEO) database. It contains detailed estimates and predictions on every possible economic parameter of virtually every country in the world.
This April, in an unprecedented move, the IMF released a near empty WEO report, containing a few topline figures on a couple of the most watched parameters. And a handful of predictions, pretty much all of which proved to be wildly off the mark.
And no serious person would blame them for being off the mark. Predictions depend on models. With the Coronavirus, all bets are off. There are no precedents and therefore no reliable models. The best minds and best algorithms in the world are working blind. The IMF realizes this too, which is why they made few predictions as it is. This October, they have released a more detailed report, but it’s all guesswork, really.
So why would media seize upon this one prediction from the IMF report?
Article by the Economic Times
And then there are these people.
Tweets by the usual suspects
I won’t blame Rahul Gandhi. He is jealous of PM Modi and is generally not very bright. Faye D’Souza and Shekhar Gupta are media people and they don’t know anything about anything. But there is Kaushik Basu, allegedly an economist with a reputation to protect. What’s his excuse?
Okay, so let us read the same IMF report. Doesn’t it also predict that India will see a GDP growth of 8.8% next year, making us the world’s fastest growing economy? Doesn’t the same IMF report also say that this is a one year blip and India will easily pull ahead of Bangladesh in per capita GDP next year? Like I said, predictions mean very little in the Coronavirus era. But the question is why one piece of fiction is more headline worthy than another? Politics, right?
Here is a piece of real data. Did you know that from independence to 2006, India’s per capita GDP was always less than Pakistan? Yes, in all those decades with all those Bharat Ratna winning Prime Ministers that we read about in history books, India was always struggling behind Pakistan. I’m linking to the World Bank database. Dear Kaushik Basu, feel free to check my data. Shekhar Gupta and Faye D’Souza, let me know if you can read a simple graph. Dear Rahul Gandhi, feel free to tweet about this any time. Sixty years to catch up to Pakistan!
Let us now come back to the general foolishness of making predictions in the era of Coronavirus. After an absolutely horrible first quarter of the Financial Year, India’s economy did so well last month that they’re calling it the “September surprise.” Will this continue? We have literally no idea. Anything is possible.
It isn’t just India. After contracting at a record pace in April, the UK economy surged to a remarkable 9.1% growth in June. Expectations improved and economists thought they would get around 5% in August. The real number : 2.1%. Has anybody heard of such dizzying variations in such a short amount of time? That too for a highly formalized economy like the UK. Imagine now what predictions mean for India in this environment. And predictions for Bangladesh? Seriously?
Everyone is driving blind: policymakers, economists, stock brokers, entrepreneurs and consumers. Nobody knows what will work and why. Except, of course, for journalists who have two eyes properly fixed in the back of their heads, with perfect 20/20 hindsight.
Seriously, does anybody know when or where cases will surge, or when we might have to impose the next lockdown? Here is the Coronavirus curve for France.
COVID cases graph
So 22,591 new cases in France yesterday and 105 deaths. France has 6.5 crore people, comparable to say Gujarat. The numbers for Gujarat yesterday: 1175 new cases and 11 deaths.
Did you know that France’s healthcare system is ranked the best in the world by the WHO? That’s how it fared.
Right now, cases in India are on the decline. Can anybody really say when they could start exploding again? The Mumbai local trains start today: will that lead to disaster? We don’t know. But how long could we have kept them from running?
And yet, the international press and even domestic media is on the offesive against India. The accusation: why is India doing as badly as the US?
Uh, excuse me? A generation of Indians who were ready to sacrifice everything for a chance to send their kids to American shores just had a heart attack. In 2019, the Indian government announced that we finally have enough toilets. We weren’t quite ready with one ventilator per Indian, so forgive us for that.
If one year ago, I had told you that in a pandemic, India would fare just as well or even better than the US or Western Europe, you would have laughed at me. And yet, here we are: The US has 657 deaths per million. France has 485. Sweden has 579. Canada has 262 deaths per million. How about India?
We have 82 deaths per million, among the lowest in the world. Smearing India by claiming that we are undercounting deaths can only go so far. It cannot explain the huge gulf between 82 deaths per million and 657 deaths per million.
If one year ago, I had said that in a health crisis, Bihar would emerge as the superstar and Kerala as the worst performer, would you have believed me?
So that’s Coronavirus. It has taken every reputation and every form of ego, put them in the juicer and spun them around at top speed. We are dealing here with an enemy more powerful than we can even imagine. It can turn everything upside down.
The small minds cannot understand this. And some big minds don’t want to understand this. A few months ago, they told us about the Kerala model of fighting the virus, apparently the best in the universe. That flopped miserably. Now they have a new pitch: the Bangladesh model of economics.
But there is the old saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.
Article by LiveMint
The Nobel Prize for arrogance and ignorance must therefore go to Mint, which did a “deeper analysis” of the IMF data. What did they find? That while Bangladesh will again fall behind India in per capita GDP from 2021 onwards, they are projected to beat us one more time in 2025!
2025!
Hey Mint, we don’t know what the virus could do to us in the next one year, let alone five. We literally have no idea what could be the after effects of this virus on the human body. Are those who look like they are recovered really recovered? Will they survive five years? We have no idea. Did you see how the search for the vaccine keeps stalling? And if there is a vaccine, where is the time to do a decade long study of possible side effects? Who knows … the vaccine may be more dangerous than the virus itself. Maybe we all take the vaccine and then it gives us all cancer in five years. Yeah, we could all die. It’s a real possibility. This could be the end. Like seriously.
There is no scientific principle that says things will always turn out fine for humanity. We are tiny beings on a speck of dust orbiting a moderate sized star in one galaxy among billions in the universe. We could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter one bit.
Let me explain how dire the situation is. As on date, the survival of humanity itself is hanging in the balance. And you’re reading predictions about 2025. Good, we need the optimism. And a clown to laugh at.
The entire Bollywood industry seems to have started a war they cannot possibly win. The Bollywood industry backed by the A-listers who run their own production houses had filed a suit in the Delhi High Court to stop Arnab Goswami, Republic TV, Pradip Bhandari and Times Now from ‘defaming’ Bollywood. While Times Now was also included in the petition, after the constant hounding of Republic TV, it was largely seen as a battle to take Arnab Goswami down.
The suit had asked them to take down all “defamatory” content published by them against the film industry. The Bollywood bigwigs are reportedly upset at the alleged use of words like “dirt”, “filth”,” scum”, “druggies” and expressions such as “all the perfumes of Arabia cannot take away the stench and the stink of this filth and scum of the underbelly of Bollywood” to describe the film industry.
The lawsuit — filed by four industry associations and 34 production houses, including the ones owned by Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar, Rohit Shetty, Vinod Chopra, and Ashutosh Gowariker had asked for the channels to be barred from conducting a “media trial”.
However, now the Bollywood industry seems to be harking ‘Retreat’!
In a statement on behalf of the production houses that have filed the civil suit against Republic TV and Times Now, a statement was released to the media that said that the suit was not aimed at the two channels specifically, but “entire media”.
A fresh press release by DSK Legal, representing 34 production houses and four film associations, stated that the relief sought from Delhi High Court would be applicable not merely to the two news channels earlier named but to any content on any news channels, individual persons or on any of the digital platforms.
“Our clients, the trade associations and production houses of the Hindi film industry which have filed a suit before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court on October 12, 2020 against certain named television news channels and digital media platforms seeking injunctive relief as stated therein, clarify that the suit is not just seeking orders against the channels and platforms named in the suit, but also against unnamed defendants referred to as John Doe/ Ashok Kumar,” read the statement.
It added: “This means that any orders passed in favour of the plaintiffs would apply to all television channels and content on digital platforms which may be found violating such orders. Our clients have also come across some others publishing such content and will be adding certain specific additional defendants to the suit. Our clients also wish to clarify that as specifically stated in the plaint, they are not seeking a blanket gag order against media reportage of investigation of cases, as our clients find is being erroneously reported.”
Days after Bollywood production houses and artist associations had come together to file a suit in Delhi high court against Republic TV and Times Now to restrain them from making remarks against the film industry, the Cine & TV Artistes’ Association (CINTAA), one of the petitioners in the suit, has now passed a resolution to make way for the possibility to include other media networks and news channel in their petition filed in the Delhi High Court.
Interestingly, in a letter released by CINTAA on Thursday, the artistes’ association had also said that it may add media and news channels other than the two media channels already added in the suit filed before the Delhi High Court. The CINTAA’s decision to include other media networks in their suit is now being viewed as an attempt by the Bollywood industry to lay the ground for a tacit retreat in the case that was seen as an action specifically to target Republic TV and Arnab Goswami.
It is specifically being seen as a retreat against Arnab Goswami and Republic TV since in the first para, they specifically mention ARG Outlier Media Ltd, which is Arnab Goswami’s company. Also, because the Bollywood industry has been up-in-arms against Arnab Goswami over his coverage of Sushant Singh Rajput case and the drug bust by NCB in which several big Bollywood names have come up so far.
When the entire Bollywood industry had decided to go after Republic TV and Times Now, far more than Times Now, the liberal establishment had celebrated that the industry was training its gun against Arnab Goswami and that, it was time to pull him down. However, with the massive support that the channel gets, it seems that even the Bollywood big-wigs have realised that going after Arnab Goswami is simply bad optics for the high and mighty in the industry, who now seem to be whining after the dirty truth about their industry seems to be tumbling out, post the Sushant Singh Rajput death and the drug bust by NCB.
Sandip Ssingh, a friend of Sushant Singh Rajput, has sent a defamation notice through Advocate Rajesh Kumar to Arnab Goswami and Republic TV under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, which is punishable under Section 500 of the Code. He has claimed Rs.200 crore as compensation. Sandip posted the notice on his Instagram account and wrote, “It’s payback time” in the caption.
In the notice, Sandip S Singh said that he was termed as a “key conspirator” and murderer” by Republic TV and editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. He also alleged that someone from the news channel got in touch with him and asked for monetary benefits for the channel if he wanted to stop the news from being aired against him. As he refused, the notice stated that the channel carried out several reports and made serious allegations against him.
Alleging extortion attempts, the notice states that the allegations made by Republic against Sandip Singh were baseless and without any evidence. It also mentioned that the channel invited one Smita Parikh to defame Sandip further. It highlights a series of reports carried out by Republic TV that allegedly defamed Singh.
Notice mentions reports that allegedly defamed Sandeep
According to the notice, the reports on 3rd, 5th, 14th and 20th August had ‘malicious content’ and were aired to defame Sandip Singh. In one of the media segments, as per the notice, a panellist had alleged that Sandeep “insisted that the ambulance” carrying Rajput’s body “will go to Cooper hospital”. It was also alleged that the PR team of Sandeep had clicked a photograph to distribute in the media. The notice further claims that a few reports on Republic TV had suggested that Sandeep was against the CBI probe. It also mentions a hashtag #ArrestSandeepSingh that was run by the channel.
Sandip Singh’s notice also states that from 22nd to 24th August, Republic TV correspondents had entered his residents and had harassed the security guards and domestic helpers. According to Sandip, it was another attempt to defame him.
Case to be filed in case Republic TV does not reply in 15 days
The notice has asked the channel to remove all the content from every platform and apologize to Sandip S Singh and include ‘true facts’ about him in the apology. In case Republic TV does not send a reply to the notice within 15 days, a case would be filed in the court seeking damages for defamation.
Sushant Singh Rajput case
Actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his apartment on 14th June. The case has taken several twists and turns. Several allegations were made against his ex-girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, her family, Mumbai Police, and several Bollywood celebrities. After his father filed a complaint in Bihar, a request was made to handover the case to CBI. During the investigation, some connections with a drug cartel and money laundering came into light after NCB and ED were also roped in. As of now, the three investigation agencies are looking into the case. Rhea Chakraborty, the main accused in the drug case, recently got bail. Her brother Showik is still in jail.
